If you'll pardon the pun, the Libquantum C library has now leaped from version 0.2.4 to 0.9.1 after three years of seeming inactivity. The new version includes a new API which gives users the ability to simulate quantum mechanics.

The project was launched in 2002 to simulate quantum computing. The latest version gives users the ability to simulate general quantum mechanics over time, say the developers.

The new version now includes documentation for the API that integrates the Schrödinger equation. This gives users the ability to solve general quantum mechanics problems, says Hendrik Weimer, a physicist and one of the developers of the library. The two-man developer team is releasing its quantum simulation library under the GPLv3, and at the same time forking the library into a stable and a developer version.

According to the developers, the special thing about the Libquantum simulator is that can simulate the effect of decoherence. The biggest problem in quantum computing is that non-ideal, that is real, quantum mechanics systems are impacted by measurements (decoherence). Björn Butscher and Hendrik Weimer's Libquantum not only implements registers and gates but simulates measuring errors. The source files are available in the form of a gz archive from the download section of the homepage.

The C library was used in 2004 within the scope of a biophysics program for the Coreworld project in Harvard: the project simulated an artificial environment with the hypothesis that quantum life forms capable of using the logical gates specific to quantum computers and implemented as simple Assembler programs, would have a selective advantage over non-quantum lifeforms in an otherwise natural, abstract biosphere.